


Say the Words

by forthegreatergood



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sexual Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 05:05:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: Bruce and Hal’sfriendscoworkers-with-benefits situation isn’t really working for either of them.Hal’s tongue felt thick against his teeth, and there were words for how stupid he was about to be, Hal was sure of it, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of any.“What if, just for tonight--” He could hear himself saying it, like he was watching a car accident happen. “--you acted like you loved me.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: All characters property of DC and their respective parent companies.
> 
> Huge thank-you to [foxyk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyk/pseuds/foxyk) for beta-reading this!

Hal laced his fingers behind his head and studied the ceiling tiles above his bed. He should get up, shower, change the sheets. He should do something so he wouldn’t wake up in the morning, alone but still smelling like Bruce and sex. He should find someone to fuck who didn’t leave him more coiled up and on edge than he’d been before he’d come, someone who wasn’t quite so beautiful or quite so brilliant or quite such a bastard.

Next time, he thought. Next time he’d say _no_. Next time he’d say _stay_. Next time he’d say _not like this_.

It was always next time, with Bruce. Hal rolled over and shoved his face against the still-warm pillow on the other side of the bed.

It wasn’t that he was expecting chocolates and flowers and an early movie to leave plenty of time for tender lovemaking afterwards. Hal wasn’t sure he’d know what to do with that if he got it. But he had, he realized now, somehow expected that fucking Bruce would eventually stop being an endurance course. That the razor’s edge would give way to safer ground once they’d felt each other out. That it would stop being a strangely high-stakes game with ever-changing rules.

He’d somehow expected it to stop being too exciting to pass up in favor of having a conversation which might not go his way. He’d expected having that gigawatt intensity all focused on him to be something he could habituate to. He’d expected, when he got right down to it, that there would be a point where fucking Bruce became a routine thing that he could think about rationally.

It had happened before, with previous fuckbuddies. Maybe half of his relationships had started out the normal way, dates that kept happening, conversations about where it was going, an official declaration of coupledom. Everything else had been friends who’d fallen into his bed, then kept falling into his bed, until their hands knew where to go and their mouths knew where to kiss and they knew which breaths meant ‘slow down’ and which noises meant ‘harder’ and one of them asked, “Are we a thing, now?” and the other said, “Sure.”

With Bruce, it was different. The first time had almost been an extension of an argument, or maybe the fight they’d almost lost to Brainiac right after the argument, or maybe both all wrapped up together. It had been rough and fast, a quickie in Hal’s quarters on the Watchtower with both of them only half out of their suits, Hal’s moans muffled around the teeth he’d sunk into Bruce’s shoulder and Bruce barely seeming surprised at being bitten. 

The second time had been the next day, in the showers after Hal had noticed the bruise his teeth had left. He hadn’t meant to, or maybe just didn’t want to cop to it, but there was no denying how hard his cock had been at the sight of his mark staining Bruce’s skin. Bruce had taken his time, then, torturing Hal with the need for quiet and the thought that someone could walk in and they’d have to stop, and when Hal finally came he hadn’t been able to stand on his own for a full ten minutes afterwards. It had been three months between then and the next time, for no reason that Hal could understand but he assumed made perfect sense to Bruce.

It had been that time that he’d first realized the potential of sleeping with a guy who could slide into a persona as easily as a coat. He’d been joking--or, more accurately, grousing--when he’d said, “At least act like you’re trying to impress me.”

But then Bruce had, a pitch-perfect performance of a rich man trying to impress a date that ended in a jaw-droppingly posh hotel room and Bruce leaving as soon as he’d gotten what he wanted on the strength of an obviously, painfully fake early-morning meeting and a casual invitation to charge breakfast to his black card.

In retrospect, his own confidence that Bruce couldn’t possibly think less of him and so there couldn’t be any harm in asking for exactly what he wanted was mildly terrifying. The time after that, “Act like we don’t know each other.” had led to borderline-anonymous sex in a men’s room in a sleazy club. 

He still wasn’t sure what had possessed him to ask Bruce to pretend to be bored, or what it said about him that it had been one of the most satisfying encounters he’d had in the past two years. It was the only time they’d done it that Bruce had shown a crack in the facade. Hairline fissures, but still there. The one thing Bruce hadn’t been able to convincingly pretend to be was not interested in what Hal was doing to him. And Hal figured it probably helped that the next time they fucked, Bruce had been damn near insatiable, like he was trying to wring two nights’ worth of screwing out of the two hours they had.

What Hal knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that there was a crushing ache in his chest every time he thought of Bruce in someone else’s bed, and that whenever he tried making it with anybody else he couldn’t stop comparing them to Bruce, and that if this went on much longer he might lose his damn mind.

It didn’t help that it was business as usual whenever they saw each other in uniform, with Bruce sniping at him like Hal didn’t know precisely what he was doing when he drew fire or created a diversion and him sniping back at Bruce over his disappearing acts and unnecessarily withheld information. Last time things had gone south during a fight, Bruce had stitched up Hal’s arm in the Watchtower’s med bay like he’d been repairing a sofa cushion, his lips going thin and tight when Hal had made a joke about chicks digging scars, then beamed out before Hal had even gotten his uniform back on. Again, it wasn’t that Hal expected get-well cards and balloons. It was just difficult to look up expecting to see Bruce and find everyone but him.

Hal had meant to bring it up tonight, meant to talk about it, meant to say, “I need more than this.”

He’d meant to ask if it was really so hard for Bruce to at least act like he gave a damn.

He’d meant to do a lot of things, except that he’d barely gotten the door open before Bruce’s tongue had been in his mouth and Bruce’s hands had been on his ass and Bruce had been shoving him against the counter like they were going to fuck right there on the faded formica. Hal still wasn’t entirely sure if he was grateful or disappointed that they’d made it into the bedroom, just that it hadn’t occurred to him to say anything beyond “more” and “harder” and “now” until Bruce was walking back out the door.

Hal sighed and flipped the blinds closed, blotting out the light from the streetlamps. Next time. He’d say something next time.


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce chafed his tender arms and stared at the spreadsheets. There was nothing of interest. He’d been over them three times; wherever the bribes he was tracking had been routed through, it hadn’t been Gotham Municipal Trust. Once he got the right bank, he was certain it wouldn’t be difficult. Inspectors, especially environmental-impact analysts, weren’t drug lords; there was rarely anything sophisticated about their attempts to hide ill-gotten money. He could pull the records he needed from the last six banks on his list tomorrow, from the office. There was nothing more to be done tonight, nothing more keeping him in the cave. He wasn’t fool enough to go on patrol, or to go out at all without a damn good reason.

Except that somewhere in the back of his mind was a steady, inescapable countdown, the closing window of time between Hal coming off monitor duty and Hal leaving for a sector sweep that would last a bare minimum of two weeks. The more likely estimate, based on past trip lengths, was twenty days. Three weeks of absence. Three weeks of relief. Three weeks of a gnawing emptiness just as vicious as the want that coursed through him in Hal’s presence.

Bruce rubbed his eyes and got up, crossed to his workbench, and adjusted the lights until they matched the spectral composition and brightness of the bulbs in Hal’s bedroom. It didn’t register as a decision so much as a reflex. He should stay in, get some sleep, or at least scan the parole docket for troublesome names or high-risk cases. There were cold-case files to review. Diana had insisted he accompany her to an upcoming state function, which would require a fair amount of research if he wanted to keep his cover without being a nuisance. Instead, he’d be trying his luck with Hal, trying to pry at least one more night with him out of the universe. There was as little conscious thought to it as him reaching for the suit when the bat-signal lit the clouds.

Bruce pushed his sleeves up and examined the skin beneath intently. He had a few hours, maybe more, before the inevitable discoloration began to show. It would be impressive--most likely the mottled red and purple that was hardest to cover effectively with cosmetics--but the weather would let him dress in oxfords and turtlenecks without comment until he’d healed. The only sticking point was with Hal, which hadn’t seemed like a vital consideration while Alec’s vines had been damn near squeezing the life out of him but was weighing on him now. 

It hadn’t been intentional, though it had been instructive. Alec had overreacted to the threat they’d faced, forgotten that Bruce’s suit was fireproof, lost his perspective on the cycle of life in the immediacy of potential death. Bruce wasn’t sure if it was a natural, animal fear of fire or a flashback to the specific disaster that had catalyzed Alec’s transformation. All things considered, a few bruises and a bit of a shock were a low price to pay for the reminder that being human made Alec more dangerous than being an elemental. The swamp was a thing of great power, but it wasn’t the plant that felt fear, or loss, or grief. The swamp was predictable in a way the man wasn’t. 

Bruce ran the edge of his thumb over a particularly painful spot, mapping the edges of where a gall had dug into his flesh. The irony of Alec trying to help having the same rough result as Isley trying to harm wasn’t lost on him. 

The pain at least was of a stripe he was used to ignoring, pushing through when the need was there. Not that Hal was strictly classed as a _need_ , not yet, but three weeks--and then some, depending on how long everything took to fade--was enough to force his hand. 

It would be easier, he thought, if Hal--fierce, determined, brave Hal; Hal who didn’t think twice about facing down entire armies by himself if it might save one innocent life--wasn’t as put off by the evidence of Bruce’s more high-impact encounters. If Bruce could wordlessly ignore the haunted looks or the new scars or the skin still delicate from healing burns that Hal occasionally came home with, if he could recognize his silence on the subject as the price of admission to Hal’s bed, he’d have thought Hal could at least reciprocate.

Not that Bruce had any room to make overt demands, there. He hadn’t made a hash of stitches as badly as the job he’d done on Hal’s shoulder since he’d been a child, operating on stuffed animals under his father’s beaming supervision. It hadn’t even been a serious wound--just a shallow slice, a mercy when it could have been so much worse--but Hal had still needed help, and Bruce had almost needed to reach for butterfly bandages and leave the permanent solution to steadier hands.

Not that Bruce had any room to make demands at all, not when Hal made sure to remind him that this was just a thing they did every so often, not when there hadn’t been so much as a flicker of difference in Hal’s behavior outside the bedroom. There was a part of him that appreciated it, the way Hal tried to be considerate and let him know where they stood without making him listen to Hal say the words. 

It never got easier, hearing someone he loved fumble their way through a passive-voice explanation of his deficiencies as a friend or lover, as if these were just flaws that had mysteriously found their way into the relationship through no fault of anyone’s. Almost as painful was hearing someone he loved ask if they were a target, how thick his file on them was, if this was a courtship or an investigation. Talia was the only one who’d ever accepted it as just a natural part of a close relationship, and what did that say about him? At least Hal couched it in the terms of a game, asked Bruce to sometimes pretend he was less _himself_ , to see what it was like to screw as somebody--anybody--else. 

It let him imagine that this was something they could keep doing, every so often, so long as he was careful, so long as he kept the lines drawn, so long as he didn’t let anything bleed into parts of their lives that it shouldn’t. It let him hope.

Bruce tugged his sleeves back down and turned the lights off. It wouldn’t take long to make himself presentable. The effects that Hal responded to best were simple to achieve and fairly straightforward, and it wasn’t as if Bruce needed to take anyone else’s opinion in account tonight. Hal would want a quiet evening at home, would be looking to wallow in the comforts he was signing up to go without for the duration of the sweep. Hal would be relaxed, his guard down, his smiles broader and closer to the surface, readier to let Bruce make him come without a pretense around it. It was a state Bruce treasured in him, something he knew he’d never see enough of.

As often as it had been suggested--occasionally by Hal himself--that Bruce wouldn’t know a normal emotion if it bit him, he’d learned to read people early. Hal’s easy camaraderie was offered freely, but his respect had to be earned, and Bruce was acutely aware of the fact that neither were directed at him with any regularity. Not that he’d know what to do if he had it--he’d almost come to rely on Hal second-guessing him as a check against blind spots in his plans. And where most of the colleagues Hal had charmed eventually revealed themselves as personable enough under their shyness or pride, simply needing to be drawn out of their shells, all Bruce had to offer anyone who got to know him better was a new angle on the same dysfunction. Hal asking him to wear a different kind of mask was probably the only effective compromise the two of them could make.

There would come a time when it would fall through. Hal would come to his senses, or find someone with whom he had a future. Bruce would be unable to make himself let go, or the pain of settling for a conditional sliver of Hal’s attention would finally cut through the want, or the mission would expand again, crowding out the last of anything he could call a life. Bruce knew that. But in the meantime, he had twelve hours before Hal had to be anywhere, and he intended to make good use of it if Hal would let him.

****

Hal stretched and yawned, and if the fridge was empty and the apartment felt weirdly sterile with everything cleaned up and stripped down, it was at least an explicable sort of sterile. Wally hadn’t noticed anything weird about the Watchtower’s life-support system, but ever since Bruce had upgraded the UV scrubbers, Hal could swear the air had tasted faintly of burnt electronics and despair. 

The next time he ran into Oliver, who’d be all over the chance to badger Bruce about something stupid, Hal would have to ask him to take it up with Clark, with whom Bruce couldn’t argue in the event they found an issue. It said something that that would be the least aggravating route to solving the problem. Bringing it up with Bruce directly would just lead to another frustrating conversation in which they pretended to be acquaintances from work instead of fucking each other’s brains out on a semi-regular basis. 

Hal hadn’t counted on how maddening it would be to know what Bruce’s skin felt like under his tongue but still have to check any urge to touch him eighty percent of the time they spent together. Hell, he hadn’t counted on how maddening it would be to know what Bruce sounded like with a cock in his mouth but still find himself calling Bruce a jackass in open meetings.

Hal settled onto the couch and reached for the remote. He could order in, watch the Clippers mop the floor with the Comets, crawl into bed at a reasonable hour, and not think about the Watchtower or Bruce for another month. A knock on the door roused him from his pleasant torpor.

Hal opened it to find Bruce slouching against the jamb and looking like a wet dream made real. Hal blinked a few times, trying to focus around the way Bruce’s jeans clung to every delicious curve and sharp angle and and the way Bruce’s shirt might as well have been an engraved invitation to peel it off him with his teeth. Or maybe, Hal thought, he could do this instead.

Bruce raised his eyebrows, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Hal realized he was gaping. Gaping, and standing there in the Supergirl pajamas Dinah had gotten him for his birthday. With his hair probably looking like a haystack.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Bruce asked softly.

“I thought vampires only had to be asked once,” Hal snorted, flushing. He fell back a step and ran his fingers through his hair in spite of his suspicion that it would only make any stray tufts stand out more. “Come on, get in here. Last thing I need is the neighbors talking.”

Bruce’s smirk widened at that. Hal wanted to kiss it off him, stopping himself only because it was probably exactly what Bruce was expecting him to do. There was even a prime moment for it as Bruce sauntered past him, slow and inviting, his gaze sweeping the room casually enough that it didn’t quite register as the security check it was. Hal closed the door and leaned on it, arms crossed and smiling in spite of the _next time_ nagging at him from the back of his mind. 

Eventually he was going to come to grips with the fact that Bruce was never _not_ going to look like this when he showed up hoping to get laid, and that Hal was never going to be firing on enough cylinders not to kick the can down the road. Given the calculated way Bruce turned back to look at him, the suggestiveness Bruce could manage just standing there, ‘eventually’ was probably years away.

Except that this would end as soon as they’d both come, and Bruce would vanish until the next time he had a few hours and a hard-on to kill.

Hal swallowed and tried not to let his smile slip.

Almost a year, they’d been doing this. Almost a year, and Bruce was still ice cold whenever he wasn’t molten. Almost a year, and Bruce barely acted like they were friends.

Bruce tilted his head and let his eyes trace Hal’s frame, a very different look in them from when he was surveying the apartment, before settling on the logo festooning the flannel.

“Don’t even start,” Hal managed. “They were a present.”

Bruce slipped two fingers into the waistband of Hal’s pants and gently drew him closer, then slid his hands over Hal’s hips and leaned in to kiss him. 

“They look good on you,” Bruce murmured, brushing his lips over Hal’s, “but that’s not exactly what I thought we’d be discussing by this point.”

Hal could feel his brain starting to short out, some combination of Bruce’s cologne and Bruce’s hands on his skin and Bruce’s mouth reminding him that he could have Bruce naked and moaning underneath him within the next five minutes if only he said the word. Bruce shifted his weight slightly, leaning into Hal, fitting their bodies together like puzzle pieces. They could’ve been in bed by now, if only Hal would get out of his own way. They could be doing anything Hal wanted, it wasn’t like Bruce had ever once said no when Hal asked for something when they did this--

Hal put his hands flat on Bruce’s chest. He didn’t need to put any strength behind it; he’d never had to _tell_ Bruce to stop or slow down or go easier. It was amazing, now that Hal thought about it, how acutely perceptive Bruce could be when they were together like this, given that trying to talk to him in the field was like arguing with a poorly-programmed chatbot.

Bruce rocked back gracefully, putting space between them without retreating, and waited. Hal’s tongue felt thick against his teeth, and there were words for how stupid he was about to be, Hal was sure of it, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of any.

“What if, just for tonight--” He could hear himself saying it, like he was watching a car accident happen. “--you acted like you loved me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bruce scanned the street, the gears of his mind spinning too fast to catch on anything. He recognized that there was an implicit time limit to this offer, this thing Hal had asked of him. Whichever of the million things crowding the list of possibilities that he picked, it would need to be quick and potent, a short fuse with a high yield.

What did people--normal people, people who didn’t have to stop and think about it, people who didn’t have to be asked, people who weren’t him--do when they were in love? 

Flowers were out; between the season and the hour it would take too long to find the butter-yellow daffodils Hal preferred, and it would be a waste with Hal leaving in the morning. 

Food, then. The fridge would be free of perishables, and Hal’s day had been long enough he wouldn’t want to go to the effort of cooking. There was the seafood place Hal practically never ordered from but whose menu had never budged from its prominent position on his refrigerator. 

A liquor store on the way back would let him pick up a bottle of wine that Hal wouldn’t want tonight, but that was all right, wine kept. Something Hal wouldn’t get for himself normally, something he’d eye but decide against because of the price or the decadence or the simple lack of justification, something he’d drink the next time he had something to celebrate, surrounded by the people he cared about and triumph glittering in his warm eyes. Bruce let himself smile at the idea of Hal crowing over some accomplishment in sympathetic company. It was the sort of gathering Bruce had exiled himself from early, hard, and over Clark’s protests.

“You’ve been the life of more parties than I’ve plowed fields, Bruce, just make an appearance.”

“It’s a performance, Clark.” It had seemed so obvious to him, at the time. It had been astonishing that Clark hadn’t seen it, hadn’t detected the telltale half-second pauses as Bruce read the room, selected a response, considered his phrasing, double-checked what he knew of his audience. Carrying a conversation was like picking a lock, except that locks couldn’t feel hurt or betrayed at the deception. “I’m not subjecting our colleagues to it.”

If Bruce hit his marks tonight, presented a version of himself that was more palatable, maybe Hal would smile to himself and think of Bruce when he got around to opening the wine, spare a few moments to wish Bruce was there. It shouldn’t be hard; Hal wasn’t asking for much.

A quiet night in, like Hal had planned anyway, but with better food. Cuddling on the couch instead of foreplay. Hal would want to watch the game. It was the playoffs, and the Coast City Clippers were favored to win. At least one hour, more likely two, of just holding Hal and basking in the glow of his contentment.

Bruce stopped in his tracks as recognition landed. The last time he’d felt like this, Selina had just made parole and seemed to be making good on her promise of going straight. It was that brief, shining moment that wouldn’t last, too good to regret later even as he sifted through the wreckage that would come in its wake, too singular and improbable an event not to seize with both hands. This was the sort of thing that would hurt for a long time after it ended, might even hurt while it was happening. He recognized that now. But it also wouldn’t hurt enough to tarnish what it had been, and it was one of the rare gambles he could make that could only ever come back on him personally. It was a risk with which he could be perfectly selfish, perfectly reckless.

When he started moving again, his plans were more focused, more fluid, the multitude of options coalescing into a coherent set of objectives. If Hal had been serious, if Bruce returned to the apartment to find the expectation that they’d continue instead of a sheepish countermand, this could be everything he’d never let himself want handed to him on a silver platter. Hal had asked him to be someone he wasn’t, couldn’t be, but had always wanted to be--without the poisoned promise that came with trying to pretend unasked. Hal was giving him permission to go farther than they’d ventured before, and all Bruce had to do was not fuck it up for one night.

He could do that much, he hoped.

****

Hal stared numbly at the tv, trying to focus on the announcers’ nattering instead of the expression on Bruce’s face right before he’d bolted.

In all the time they’d spent together, Hal had never seen someone suckerpunch Bruce. It wasn’t that they hadn’t tried--Bruce had a way of putting things that made even Wally want to hit him every so often--so much as he’d never once seemed surprised when the punch got thrown. It hadn’t been anything Hal had genuinely contemplated so much as something he’d simply noted early on, when they’d first started working together and every conversation had seemed to end with an unspoken ‘go fuck yourself,’ and filed away for future reference: if he really wanted to take a swing at Bruce, he might as well just book the dojo and do it properly.

It was unexpectedly unsatisfying to find out that all it took for Bruce to look like he’d been ambushed was Hal opening his mouth and asking Bruce to pretend he cared.

Hal hit the mute button and closed his eyes, picturing the perfect, blank mask that Bruce’s face had settled into once he’d fully registered the request. It was tempting to start cataloging all the terrifying, ridiculous things Bruce hadn’t run from over his career. It was a fairly complete one, too, given how frequently it came up when they argued. 

Hal had a ring that let him go toe to toe with cosmic monstrosities, and he still got his ass kicked often enough that he felt it when he got out of bed in the morning. Bruce had some body armor and a stubborn streak, and all the intelligence in the world wouldn’t help if it didn’t translate into knowing when it was time to get out of the way of an oncoming unstoppable force. The one thing that had prompted him to beat an immediate retreat?

“What if, just for tonight, you acted like you loved me.”

Hopefully word would never get out to the more talkative villains that all it took to nerf Bruce was a request for affection. 

Though Hal supposed demands for hugs might be a welcome if awkward break from long, spittle-punctuated monologues about how their high school guidance counsellor never understood their brilliance and recommended they learn a marketable skill instead. Bank robbers, spies, saboteurs: those were people Hal could at least appreciate as having a reasonable goal with a concrete motive. The guys holding an entire supermarket hostage with an experimental superweapon because nobody would voluntarily listen to their demo album were a dangerous mystery.

The sound of a key in the deadbolt on the front door had him on his feet in a heartbeat.

Hal watched stupidly as Bruce balanced a bag on one hip while he locked the door behind him, then tossed the spare key Hal didn’t remember mentioning and certainly hadn’t noticed him taking back into the change-bowl on the sideboard.

“Um.” Hal shook himself, then started moving when Bruce produced a pair of cartons from the bag. The appetite he’d lost when Bruce had taken off without even bothering to make an excuse was slinking back at the promise of shrimp scampi. “Where?”

“Catch of the Day,” Bruce said innocently. He cupped Hal’s jaw and kissed him gently, easily, like this was something they did all the time. Like he hadn’t just taken off without so much as an answer and then come swanning back with take-out from the best seafood joint in Coast City. Hal felt a sharp twinge when Bruce broke away and pulled a bottle of wine out of the bag. “It’s been a long day. I thought you might not want to cook tonight.”

Hal’s eyes narrowed at the Saint-Veran white in Bruce’s hand.

“For later,” Bruce promised, catching his look. He slid the bottle into the mini-rack next to the knife block. “I know you’ve got an early morning.”

“That’s not--” The objection was lost in Bruce’s mouth when he kissed Hal again, and Hal let himself melt into it when Bruce’s arms wrapped around his waist. 

They’d never discussed places to eat in Coast City, never talked about what wine to get or which whisky was best, never mentioned their schedules. Of course Bruce _knew_ , of course Bruce had noticed that there was a consistency to which bottles Hal came back with when given the run of Ollie’s cellar and when Hal had blocked himself out as unavailable for League calls. Hal just hadn’t imagined it was knowledge Bruce had attached any particular significance to. Except that now…

Oh.

_Oh._

Bruce cocked his head, his eyes focusing on something over Hal’s shoulder. “Looks like the game’s starting.”

“Yeah.” Who the hell gave a damn about the game when this was happening? Hal deliberately didn’t ask the question, the same way he hadn’t stopped and asked if Bruce was sure this was okay when they’d pretended to be strangers. “Sure.”

Hal followed Bruce to the couch on autopilot, his blood humming under the surface of his skin. He’d meant something more along the lines of Bruce staying after they came, hadn’t he? Something simpler and less intimate than Bruce settling on one side of the couch and pulling Hal against his chest, Hal’s hips bracketed comfortably between Bruce’s thighs, one arm loose around Hal’s ribs, Bruce’s free hand reaching for the remote and turning the volume back up. Hal felt something in his heart give when Bruce’s fingers combed through his hair, smoothing it down, followed by a chaste kiss pressed against his temple.

“Food’s getting cold,” Bruce murmured. Hal eyed the two clamshells on the coffee table, wary of shifting forward out of Bruce’s grip and breaking the spell.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked instead.

“Whichever one you’re not in the mood for,” Bruce said.

It was safe to move after all, Hal discovered as he wedged himself back against Bruce, dinner in hand. Bruce’s carton wound up on the side table to be picked at one-handed, his other arm occupied holding Hal comfortably close. Hal rested his head against Bruce’s throat and wondered how long he could plausibly milk this before Bruce would want to go for the payoff. Hours, maybe. Bruce was patient, sometimes infuriatingly so. Not that Hal wasn’t looking forward to moving things into the bedroom, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a night like this.

Carol, he thought. Before he’d ruined things with Carol, gotten her hopes up and only to dash them one too many times for her to keep sticking by him, they’d spent their share of nights in, just existing together.

Since then, it had been a string of casual flings, evenings spent out before retiring somewhere to consummate things and then say good night. Everything else had died on the vine, withering thanks to his schedule or the need for secrecy or simple incompatibility. This thing with Bruce had been the longest he’d managed. Bruce’s lips brushed his ear. Hal shivered and impulsively turned his face, sucking carefully at Bruce’s throat and enjoying the quiet grunt and subtle shift of Bruce’s hips against his ass as Bruce’s body responded.

“Tease,” Bruce chuckled when Hal stopped.

“Like I’m gonna hold out on you,” Hal said, stealing a scallop out of Bruce’s neglected carton.

“I’ll remember that when you’re snoring in my ear by third quarter.”

“I would never,” Hal protested. He couldn’t imagine falling asleep instead of taking Bruce up on the implicit promise of the night, especially given the terms of engagement. And it wasn’t like Bruce hadn’t demonstrated his habitual responsiveness just now, with only the smallest of provocations.

Hal considered his options. There was nothing preventing a quick blowjob on the couch during the next time-out, was there? Couples did that all the time, carving out thirty minutes here or there for sex when other things interfered or when they had all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted. The only thing was that he wasn’t sure how long this day-pass Bruce was giving him would last; the others had all expired once they’d both come, evaporating like the sweat on their skin. Best not to chance it. He settled back against Bruce and tried to distract himself, to make this last.

“Hope you didn’t let Oliver talk you into putting money on the Comets,” Hal said, watching an effortless three-pointer swish through the net.

“It was worth the hundred bucks to make him stop talking about sports at me,” Bruce admitted.

Hal paused. Of course Bruce would find basketball as interesting as watching paint dry; his most time-consuming hobby was getting into knife fights with murderous clowns. “I’ve got tivo, we can watch something else.”

“If you start complaining about blind umpires, yellow cards, or downs, I may take you up on that,” Bruce said. “Until then, I think we’re fine.”

“That’s one way to get you to chip in for things, I guess.” Hal rubbed his jaw, picturing Oliver blithely and aggressively being wrong about something trivial, something unrelated to a case or a mission or a theory, until Bruce caved and handed him a wad of cash to stop. “Was he doing it on purpose, or was it one of those times when he gets going full-throttle and forgets what he’s talking about?”

“Oh, it was deliberate. I could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes every time he came up with some new perversion of the rules of the game.”

Hal laughed, the undertone of outrage in Bruce’s voice reassuring him that this wasn’t all some put-on, not unless Bruce had decided to play a character who also hated it when people played fast and loose with facts. Bruce wound his other arm around Hal and held him, the pleased rumble from somewhere deep in his chest feeling like a purr against Hal’s back.

“Well, however you got talked into it, the beach clean-up fund thanks you for your generous contribution,” Hal sighed.

“A little early for that sort of talk, isn’t it?” Bruce asked. “Wouldn’t be the first game lost through overconfidence after a strong start. The Star City Youth Leadership League might get the pot after all.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Hal said, twisting in Bruce’s arms until he could face him. “We both know Oliver’s just going to make a matching donation out of his own pocket to the losing charity. Let’s make this actually interesting.”

“You’ve got a proposal.”

“I do.” Hal kissed him. “The Comets lose, like they are _so_ obviously going to, you’re back here helping me drink that wine once I’m off-duty. The Clippers lose, we put on our winter coats and take a romantic sleigh ride through hell to enjoy the unseasonably cold weather.”

Bruce tilted his head and looked into Hal’s eyes, obviously trying to tamp down on a smile, and Hal’s mouth went dry. He wanted to freeze the moment in amber, to find some way to make Bruce keep looking at him like that. Then Bruce’s fingertips settled into the dip of his spine, and Hal’s cock reminded him of what else he wanted. He licked his lips, and Bruce smirked.

“If the Clippers lose, you’re making the speech at the induction ceremony for new members next month.”

Hal’s eyes narrowed. “Clark always does that.”

“Clark feels that him always doing it has a few unfortunate implications,” Bruce said. “You volunteering would--”

“Clark is making you do it this time.”

“--get me off the hook,” Bruce allowed wryly.

“What’s he got on you?” Hal demanded, grinning. Bruce took to speeches like cats took to baths. Anyone on the roster would have been an easier sell. “Come on, spill it.”

“Lois gave him an IOU that I’d neglected to make nontransferable. This is how he’s cashing it in.”

“How’d Lois get an IOU out of you? What’d you do, sideswipe her car with the batmobile? Ruin one too many dates?”

Bruce gave him a hurt look, shaded with just enough of a pout that Hal knew he was being conned. “She won it in a poker game.”

“You play poker with Lois, now. That’s a thing.” Hal stopped. “Wait, are you just making stuff up?”

“No, of course I’m not just--” Bruce shook his head, his brows furrowing. “We play poker once a month. It’s a standing engagement.”

“Who usually wins?”

“Lately, her. Longitudinally, it’s about an even split.”

“So once every other month, you’ve been soaking Clark’s girlfriend out of her meager reporter’s earnings?” Hal asked, the game forgotten. “No wonder he’s making you give speeches to the newbies.”

“Her earnings are hardly meager,” Bruce said, “and we don’t play for cash.”

“Favors,” Hal guessed.

“Sometimes. Answers, other times.” 

“Sinister.”

“You play cards with half the League on a semi-regular basis,” Bruce pointed out.

“Yeah, for pocket change, monitor shifts, and guest appearances at charity fundraisers, not as part of an elaborate ritual formalizing shady backroom deals between the plutocracy and the fourth estate,” Hal said. 

“Are you finished?” Bruce sighed.

“Almost.” Hal smiled. “What’d she cash her last chit on?”

Bruce chewed his lip, and Hal brightened further. This was going to be good.

“This goes absolutely nowhere,” Bruce said.

“Scout’s honor,” Hal promised.

“You tell no one,” Bruce said firmly. “No hints, no jokes, no oblique references.”

“Do I need to scrounge up a Bible so I can swear on it?” Hal asked.

“Clark was in a bachelor auction.”

“Barbaric practice,” Hal said automatically. “She had you spring him?”

“Stop that,” Bruce chuckled. “It was part of a benefit for legal aid to journalists working under hostile regimes. Lois decided the date with Clark needed to bring in the most money for the auction.”

“That was sweet of her,” Hal said. “So basically you completely lost your shirt to a woman who just wanted to take her boyfriend on a nice date for charity. Let me guess: it wasn’t against the rules to use the IOUs and favors for cash.”

“It still isn’t,” Bruce said. “But no. I completely lost my shirt to a woman who wanted me to bankroll a ringer to take her boyfriend on a nice date for charity to send a message to the Planet’s sportswriter. Though I think the message was ultimately in defense of Clark so, yes, it was sweet of her.”

“And I can’t tell anybody, ever, because…?”

“The terms of fulfilment included not telling Clark.”

“Which you’re naturally fulfilling by not telling anybody, ever.” Hal laughed--typical Bruce-style op-sec overkill. It was a little more adorable when it was personal shenanigans instead of undercover investigations no one would know about if he didn’t come back from.

“It does make things simpler,” Bruce said.

“Simpler isn’t always better,” Hal pointed out, kissing him. Bruce’s eyes drifted shut, and his hands tightened on Hal’s hips, and Hal savored the moment. He could get used to Bruce like this, Bruce at a simmer instead of a boil. A sudden roar from the televised audience made him turn around, his attention going back to the game for a moment. “Huh.”

“Looks like you may want to start composing that speech,” Bruce suggested. Hal leaned back a little harder than was strictly necessary, and Bruce nipped at his throat.

“It’s the first quarter, and nobody on the Comets can make a free-throw to save their lives,” Hal said. “Trust me, by the time this is all wrapped up, you’ll be sorry you cheaped out on that wine.”

“I wouldn’t.” Bruce bent his head and sucked at Hal’s earlobe. “Not when it’s for you.”

Hal managed a weak laugh. 

Bruce had sounded so goddamned sincere when he’d said that, casual and tender and exactly like he’d meant it. This was a thing Bruce could do, when he was with someone he cared about. There were people in the world for whom this _was_ Bruce. Hal imagined they were probably the sort of people with the good sense not to kick off a working relationship by calling someone an overcautious asshole before generously and loudly revising the assessment to ‘sanctimonious prick.’ The sort of people with slightly better instincts, or at least slightly better manners.

Bruce took Hal’s left hand in his, interlacing their fingers, and Hal swallowed.

Why the hell had he decided to do this to himself, exactly? Had unbelievable, no-strings-attached sex with one of the hottest men he knew been such a bad thing, that he’d needed to ruin it by finding out what he was missing?

“Something wrong?” Bruce asked softly.

Hal squeezed his hand. “What could possibly be wrong?”


	4. Chapter 4

Bruce ran his hands over Hal’s ass and watched the beautiful, crooked smile on his face shift into something hungrier. He’d been nervy since the end of the third quarter, fidgeting in Bruce’s arms and kissing him whenever there was a break in play. The moment Bruce had relented and let his hand drift lower, past Hal’s waistband, Hal had turned the tv off and dragged him toward the bedroom. 

It had been a flattering sort of eagerness, the kind of thing Hal didn’t often show, preferring to seduce simply by advertising his willingness. Not that Bruce wasn’t more than willing to close the gap; the rewards were too delicious not to reach for whenever he had a chance of reaping them. 

Hal’s weight pressed him against the mattress, grounded him--a necessary thing with the way just looking at Hal like this turned his blood to smoke and his nerves to lightning. Hal dipped his head, sucked at Bruce’s lower lip, nudged his mouth open, all of it coy, playful, gentle. If Bruce closed his eyes, he could imagine they were in their shared bed with a long weekend ahead of them. He’d never expected it to work like this, when Hal had first kissed him. They’d been at cross-purposes so often, in agreement so rarely; trying to please him had been revelatory. It hadn’t lost any of its luster since. 

Bruce wrapped his hand around Hal’s cock and stroked slowly, deliberately, just enough to make him want more, and Hal hissed and thrust hard against him, slipping half out of Bruce’s fingers and sliding along the jut of his hip.

“Jesus,” Hal breathed, grinding against him. Hal’s skin was like silk as it dragged over Bruce’s cock, trapped against his belly. Bruce shifted until he could get his hand around both of them, and Hal groaned and kissed him, a ravenous thing this time, the driving demand of his tongue against Bruce’s matching that of the member pumping into his fist.

Hal’s hand slipped from his chest, the sweat beading on their skin and the snap of his hips costing him purchase, and the heel of his palm caught hard on Bruce’s bicep before hitting the blankets churned and knotted beneath them. The blossom of pain was a quick, passing thing, not enough to distract but enough to send a wave of tension rippling through his body, and Hal climaxed at its crest.

Bruce raked his fingers through Hal’s sweat-dampened hair, curling them gently but firmly around the nape of his neck as Hal shivered through an aftershock. Hal unstrung and peaceful was a rare thing, and Bruce knew better than to expect it to last. After a few seconds of stillness, Hal was back in motion, rutting languidly against him until Bruce was close to following him just from the friction and the smug, sultry grin on Hal’s face.

Hal groped between them for Bruce’s cock, dextrous fingers teasing and coaxing once he found it. Bruce arched under him, transfixed by that fond look in a timeless space between too much and not enough as he spilled against Hal, a hot gush smearing over both of them in equal measure.

Bruce came back to himself slowly, gradually, unwilling to stir from Hal’s side. It was always hard to pry himself away, always difficult to make his hands let go and his legs carry him to the door. He’d done it time and again only in the knowledge that it would have been harder still to watch Hal’s face contort as he tried to assemble a polite excuse or come up with the words to communicate, in a way which was socially acceptable immediately post-coitus, that it was time for Bruce to leave.

Hal wiped them down with his discarded shirt, a dazed and deeply satisfied look on his face, and settled the matter by plastering himself against Bruce’s chest. He threw one leg over Bruce’s thighs and snaked an arm across Bruce’s stomach for good measure, and Bruce supposed the invitation was meant to last until daybreak, at least. He relaxed, some tight-wound thread of preemptive grief he hadn’t been conscious of snapping under the heaviness of Hal’s head on his shoulder and the soft feather of Hal’s breath across his throat. 

When Bruce fit his arm more firmly against Hal’s back, Hal sighed contentedly and smiled, and Bruce silently memorized the way his face looked in that moment, just in case it wasn’t something he was privileged to see again.

****

Hal woke gradually, awareness returning in layers. He was in his own bed--his worn sheets smelling like his detergent, the faint rattle of his ceiling fan on low just to keep the air moving in the room--but he wasn’t alone.

 _Bruce_ , his groggy brain supplied. 

Bruce had stayed the night. Hal let himself drift for a few minutes, the steady rise and fall of Bruce’s ribs against his chest almost enough to lull him back to sleep. He’d have to get up soon enough, though. He’d already sent his itinerary to Oa; any deviation would require an emergency to explain, and he’d already discovered several times over that speed bumps in his personal life didn’t count.

Hal opened his eyes and watched Bruce’s face in the early-morning light. He looked younger, softer, more human like this. Hal wanted to kiss him awake and watch him come back into focus. He shifted slightly, getting his elbow under him to do just that, then froze when he caught sight of Bruce’s arm. Angry bruises ringed his bicep, banded like the fingers of a gripping hand, and Hal wondered for a sickening, weightless moment if he’d done it. 

Of course he hadn’t, he knew the moment his brain caught up with his heart that he hadn’t done anything that could sink a mark that deep into Bruce’s flesh, hadn’t so much as left a hickey on him last night. Bruce blinked awake, caught his expression, and stiffened, suddenly alert and scanning the room under the assumption that Hal was reacting to a threat.

“What is it?” Bruce asked, shifting gears again once it was obvious that there wasn’t anything immediately at hand.

Hal grimaced and tipped his chin at Bruce’s arm. 

Arms, he realized belatedly. Bruce had a matching set on the other arm, visible as soon as he unwrapped it from around Hal’s shoulder and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

Bruce examined the bruising clinically, then grimaced. “Not as bad as I thought it would be.”

And just like that, Hal thought, they were back to normal. Or at least almost. Bruce wasn’t reaching for his clothes and bolting, which was something.

“Dare I ask?” Hal sighed. “Poison Ivy?”

“Holland.” Hal gave him a blank look, and Bruce sighed. “Swamp Thing.”

“Like from the tabloids?” Hal asked. “He’s real? Wait, I thought he usually saved people, not…”

He trailed off, his eyes going to the dark stripes running parallel to each other. 

“He was trying,” Bruce explained, “just not very well.”

Hal pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d smacked into that spot last night, hadn’t he? Hal reached out and traced the edge of the bruising, barely touching. Bruce had even flinched at it. Hal just hadn’t connected the dots.

“Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. “What was there to say?” 

Hal sat back and scrubbed at his face. It had been such a nice night, and now here they were in the grim light of day, and Hal couldn’t imagine a more pointed way to realize how much of an illusion everything had been. It was too early for this. 

“Jesus, Bruce. You can’t--” Hal stopped. It wasn’t the right way to phrase it; both of them reacted to ‘you can’t’ like a bull to a red flag. “ _I need_ you to not just let me hurt you.”

Bruce laughed softly and let his head rest against the wall. He was holding himself too stiffly, his eyes were too bright, and Hal couldn’t get a read on him.

“I’m not fucking kidding,” he snapped. “You can play stoic robot all you want when you’re with someone else, but I can’t add to that. I can’t just hurt you and act like that’s not a thing.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed.” Bruce tilted his head and gave Hal a long look. “It’s just a bit late for it, that’s all.”

“A bit late for what?”

“This not hurting.”

Hal’s stomach turned over, and his mouth suddenly tasted sour. He shouldn’t have asked for last night. Deep down, he’d known he shouldn’t have asked before he’d even done it, had known he’d been playing with fire. “If you didn’t want--”

“Of course I did.” Bruce reached out, cupped Hal’s jaw, and ran the edge of his thumb over Hal’s cheek. “Some things are worth it, Hal.”

Hal closed his eyes against the quiet conviction in Bruce’s voice, the lingering gentleness in Bruce’s expression. His heart skipped a beat at a sudden possibility.

Bruce had always just left afterwards; they’d never had to come up with some sort of protocol for when it was over, when they were themselves again, when things were back to normal between them. It had been foolish, not laying ground rules for last night, but Hal had been so busy grabbing for everything he could get that he hadn’t thought.

The story of his life, Hal thought bitterly. He licked his lips. “Is this is you still pretending?”

“No,” Bruce said, letting his hand drop. His fingers curled tentatively around Hal’s knee like he was afraid Hal might jerk away.

_It’s a bit late for this not hurting._

Hal’s pulse was buzzing in his ears, and Bruce’s hand on his knee felt like a tether in danger of snapping.

_Some things are worth it._

Hal was apparently worth it, for Bruce. This had been worth it, for Bruce. What the fuck had they even been doing to each other for the past year?

“Hal, I--” Bruce paused, examining Hal’s face, then looked away, his shoulders slumping. “I should go.”

“Was any of it?” Hal asked, urgency firing his blood. He could sense the door closing on him, on this. If he folded now, he was suddenly and absolutely sure the opportunity wouldn’t come again.

“No,” Bruce admitted, meeting Hal’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Hal leaned forward, kissing him hard, trying to put the _stay, stay, stay_ pounding against his ribs into something Bruce could feel. It was ridiculous--Hal was the one who had to leave. But Bruce was a past master of emotional distance, of the cold withdraw. If Bruce ghosted on him, there was no undoing it.

“Don’t you dare apologize for this,” Hal breathed. He tangled his fingers in Bruce’s hair, tightened his grip, and kissed him again. “I love you.”

Bruce went still, and Hal waited. Some things were worth it. This was worth it. If he fell and there wasn’t a net to catch him, so be it.

“This isn’t… I can’t…” Bruce took a breath. “I’m no good at this.”

“You don’t love me?” Hal asked. Maybe he was reading too much into it, maybe Bruce was twisting himself up like this over a crush, maybe this was how Bruce reacted to affection with and from someone like Hal--

“Of course I do.” Bruce said it like it was obvious, like there was no questioning it, and Hal blinked. “It’s just--”

Hal kissed him quiet, cutting him off before he could finish. 

“I want to hear you say it,” Hal said finally, letting them up for air. “I have to leave in half an hour, and I’m not waiting the rest of the goddamned month to hear it.”

Bruce closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Hal’s.

“Come on,” Hal teased, “I went first and everything.”

“I love you.”

Hal shivered. There was a net after all. He wasn’t going to hit the ground. “Again. Please.”

“I love you.” Bruce kissed him softly. “But you know me. You know… how I am. You know this isn’t going to work.”

“We can hash that out over the bottle of wine you’re going to split with me when I get back, because yes, I’m holding you to that,” Hal said. “And please do us both the favor of not spending the interim writing a white paper on all the reasons this is a bad idea. Believe me, I know them. All of them. I don’t care.”

“You should,” Bruce said. He brushed Hal’s hair back, smoothing it off his forehead.

“Probably.” Hal smiled. “But I don’t.”

“You deserve better.”

“Probably.” Hal’s smile broadened. “But that’s kind of for me to decide, don’t you think?”

“I’m being serious,” Bruce told him, grimacing. But some of the tension was bleeding back out of his frame, too, and Hal would take it as a win.

“So am I, I promise,” Hal said. “One more for the road.”

Bruce snorted and finally smiled at him, a small, wan thing, but there all the same. He tipped Hal’s chin up and looked him in the eye.

“I love you.”

“I’m holding you to that, too.”

Bruce shook his head. “Be careful out there, Hal.”

“Says the man who somehow got beat up by a plant-guy who’s on our side,” Hal retorted. “Just be sure you stick the wine in the fridge before you go. I’m giving you as little time to back out of this as possible once I get back.”

Bruce’s smile was stronger this time. “I wouldn’t.”

Hal let go reluctantly and climbed out of bed. He glanced back to say something only to find Bruce watching him appreciatively. Well, that settled it.

He was going to do this sweep in record time. As soon as he found some pants.


End file.
